the family, "isn't this just a
dreadful, dreadful day? Oh, my, so hot! Look here, Norma, just see my
little Patricia's pictures. Aren't they perfectly lovely? I'm _so_
pleased with them. I was just----Regina, will you order Miss Norma
something cool to drink, please. Tea, dear? Or lemonade, like your old
aunty?--I was just showing them to Chris. Yes. And he thought they were
just perfectly lovely; see the little fat hand, and how beautifully the
lace took! There--that one's the best. You'll see, Leslie will like that
one."

The topic, fortunately for Norma's agitation, was apparently
inexhaustible and all-absorbing. The girl could sink almost unnoticed
into an opposite chair, and while her voice dutifully uttered
sympathetic monosyllables, and her eyes went from the portraits of
little Patricia idly about the big room, noting the handsome old maple
furniture, and the costly old scrolled velvet carpet, and the aspect of
flaming roofs beyond the window in the sunset, her thoughts could turn
and twist agonizingly over this new mystery and this new pain. What had
been the matter with Chris?

Anger gave way to chill, and chill to utter heartsickness. The cause of
the change was unimportant, after all; it was the change itself that was
significant. Norma's head ached, her heart was like lead. She had been
thinking, all the way down in the car--all to-day--that she would meet
him to-night; that they would talk. Now what? Was this endless evening
to drag away on his terms, and were they to return to Newport to-morrow,
with only the memory of that cool farewell to feed Norma's starving,
starving soul?

"Chris couldn't stay and have dinner," Mrs. Melrose presently was
regretting, "but, after all, perhaps it's cooler up here than anywhere,
and I am so tired that I'm not going to change! You'll just have to
stand me as I am."

And the tired, heat-flushed, wrinkled old face, under its fringe of gray
hair, smiled confidently at Norma. The girl smiled affectionately back.

Five o'clock. Six o'clock. It was almost seven when Norma came forth
from a cold bath, and supervised the serving of the little meal. She
merely played with her own food, and the old lady was hardly more
hungry.

"Oh, no, Aunt Marianna! I think that Leslie was just terribly nervous,
after Patricia was born. But I think now, especially when they're back
in their own house, they'll be perfectly happy. No reason in the world
why they shouldn't be," Norma heard